Sunday 25 November 2007

Senate Steering Group reports

I've mentioned in previous posts that the new Vice-Chancellor had identified that a review of the University's organisational structure had a high priority. A Senate Steering Group was established to review the current structure and to make recommendations for change. That group has now produced a report which has just been circulated to Senate and Council for discussion and approval. It has been sent to the CiCS Executive team so that it can be cascaded in the department, so that we can begin to discuss what implications it might have for us and how we organise our services and support.

The key recommendations are:

The existing Faculties (Medicine and Health, Pure Science, Engineering, Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences), are retained and become the primary location for all of the existing 41 planning units and the research centres/institutes;

Each Faculty will be led by a Pro Vice Chancellor (PVC) who will be the budget holders for that Faculty

There will also be 3 PVCs who are appointed to lead cross-cutting areas of research and innovation, learning and teaching, and external affairs

The Senior Management Group (SMG) will be replaced by a University Executive Board (UEB) which comprises the Vice Chancellor and 8 PVCs, the Registrar and Secretary and Director of Finance

The arrangements for the faculty infrastructure, resourcing and operational environment will emerge under the leadership of the new PVCs

The report specifically refers to the scope for alignment of the Faculties with professional services.

I look forward to this being discussed within the departmental teams and will post any further news here as soon as I can.

Tomorrow (Monday) I'm going to a workshop on Exploiting the Potential for Blogs and Social Networking, and providing there is a good wireless connection, will attempt to blog some of the sessions as they happen!

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